I Don’t Blame The Anti-Migrant Campaign Cynics

I am surprised that any serious-minded staff member or employee of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MGCSP) would be flabbergasted by the fact that anti-child-trafficking campaigns launched by the Ministry is not registering the desired impact (See “Ghanaians Not Interested in Migration Campaigns – Gender Ministry” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/30/18). Maybe what Ms. OtikoAfisaDjaba’s staff and the designers of such campaigns ought to be asking themselves is the fact of whether they have critically taken into consideration the practical motivating factors of child-trafficking and the sort of deadly migration adventures that got tens of Ghanaian citizens caught in the vicious vortex of chattel slavery in Libya and elsewhere in the Maghreb over the past several years.

Merely showing filmic documentaries about the deadly hazards of migratory adventurism is not going to stop or deter any ambitious and desperate young man or woman who finds his/her present situation in life to be woefully unacceptable. Indeed, it was not for nothing that, that ancient philosopher and social thinker invented that maxim which counsels that “Charity Begins at Home” or “Charity Must Begin at Home.” In other words, what are our policymakers doing wrongly that would motivate several hundreds of able-bodied youths to undertake the clearly hazardous journey across the Sahara Desert, with no concrete appreciation of what awaits them wherever it is that they may end up? Well, I can readily volunteer that one factor or problem underlying why our youths do not appear to be taking the Gender Ministry’s anti-migration campaigns seriously.

It is simply the fact that the members of the targeted audiences themselves are not convinced that the designers and implementers of the campaign material take their own campaigns any more seriously. Then, also, unless the campaign material contains constructive and credible solutions to the problems motivating these northward waves of migrations, it is highly unlikely to make the sort of difference desired and/or anticipated. For instance, are there any gainful youth employment training programs and initiatives aimed at significantly easing the soul-crushing burden of high unemployment in the country being effectively featured in these advertising campaigns? Merely “Kaakaamotobi-ing” these young men and women is not going to work.

And when the President, after one “long” year in office, appears before the national media and can only tell a desperate and perennially unemployed masses of the people that he has absolutely no figures indicating how many jobs have been created since his assumption of office, then, of course, Ms. Victory Natsu, the Acting Executive Secretary of the Human-Trafficking Secretariat at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, cannot expect our youths to take her and her associates and colleagues seriously. In other words, the Akufo-Addo government needs to move very fast to radically change the way that governance is done in the country and has been done for the past umpteen years – at an extremely slow snail’s pace – if it wants to be taken seriously.

I don’t doubt the complexity and difficulty of the job; but it is equally true that it was a job that the New Patriotic Party’s leaders fought hard and fiercely to be afforded the chance of doing by the electorate. Our leaders, on both sides of the ideological divide, need to fully recognize the fact that it is well past the electioneering campaign season of sloganeering, and that they need to haunch down, get their hands and fingers dirty and greasy and sweat it out, big time! You cannot simply expect the people to take you seriously merely because you desire to be taken seriously. You need to show by your deeds, actions and policies that you are serious. This is what the targeted audiences of Ms. Natsu’s Anti-Migration Campaign Advertisements want her and her colleagues and policymaking associates at the MGCSP to fully appreciate. It is as simple as ABCD!

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs